Psalm 143 is our sermon text today. Psalm 143, lead me on level ground, the cry of a soul for full salvation. Even in light of the prayers, we've just been praying together. Lead me, Lord, rock of ages, cleft for me. This Psalm enables us to call upon the name of the Lord. Romans 10, 13 rehearses this beautiful truth. It's a verse that I'm sure Probably the vast majority of you in here have memorized at some point or another. Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. This is the promise of God. This is the truth the scripture reveals. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. That's exactly what I want you to identify with in Psalm 143 to get together today. The cry of a soul for full salvation. Since we have now come in our series of sermons through the Psalms to the final Psalm of Lament, as they're commonly called today, these Lament Psalms, it's time to put this prayer, which is designed to be sung repeatedly by God's people, into perspective in the whole scope of our relationship with God. What does it look like to call upon the name of the Lord for salvation? Why would you do that? What are you actually asking for? I think Psalm 143, among many, many other psalms, shows us, enables us to enter into this very truth and to make it our own. Now, before we dive in here, I want you to notice something about this psalm. What frames the whole psalm in the first, in the beginning section and in the ending section is God's righteousness. God's righteousness is the frame of thought in this whole psalm. In other words, God always does what is right. Always. And so it is right for him to save those who come to him in repentant trust. Listen with me as we read through this psalm together. Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you. For the enemy has pursued my soul. He has crushed my life to the ground. He has made me sit in darkness like those long dead. Therefore, my spirit faints upon me. My heart within me is appalled. I remember the days of old. I meditate on all that you have done. I ponder the work of your hands. I stretch out my hands to you. My soul thirsts for you like a parched land. Answer me quickly, O Lord. My spirit fails. Hide not your face from me, lest I be like those who go down to the pit. Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul. Deliver me from my enemies, O Lord. I have fled to you for refuge. Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. Let your good spirit lead me on level ground. For your namesake, O Lord, preserve my life. In your righteousness, bring my soul out of trouble, and in your steadfast love, you will cut off my enemies, and you will destroy all the adversaries of my soul, for I am your servant. Pardon me. We see in this Psalm, and I'm just going to take in two main sections here today for our sermons sake. We see, first of all, in verses one through six here, the cry of a soul needing God's righteous work. My soul thirsts for you, it closes with. This is the cry of a soul who recognizes how much he needs God's righteousness to be at work. And we see here a couple of reasons why a soul would cry out to God, why a soul would recognize, I need God to work in His righteousness on my behalf. First of all, we see here that you need God's righteous work because you are not righteous. In fact, not only you individually, but no one else either is righteous. It says in verse two here, enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you. We've seen in the Psalms many times where the Psalms do appeal to God to enter into judgment, to vindicate those who are his servants. And that's certainly true relative to those who are God's enemies. God needs to enter into judgment. But even for those who are God's servants, this prayer says, enter not into judgment that is condemnation with your servant. Why? Because no one living is righteous before you. That's what leads you to cry out to the Lord for his righteous work. It's a recognition that no one living is righteous, or you recognize that you are not righteous. Now, sometimes when you say this to people today, it sounds harsh to many people. When you say, well, you're a sinner. In fact, everyone's a sinner. Aren't you being a little bit judgmental by saying something like that? Isn't there something good about us? We like to think that way. And so it sounds harsh to us to say that you are not good. And much of what you hear today will tell you to believe that you are good, that you need to affirm yourself, that you need to approve of yourself, that you need to basically you recognize how good you are in order to become all that you were meant to be. And so we're supposed to tell other people that too, right? You're really good. You're basically good. And if you'll just live up to the potential that's within you, then you'll be a good person. In fact, that's how we'll have a good world. Now, while it might sound harsh to say to them, to people, the complete opposite of what you so often hear, no, actually, you are a sinner and everybody around you is a sinner too. While that might sound harsh, I would submit to you today that it's actually the only thing that makes real sense of your experience in this life, isn't it? Do you know that you actually do wrong? Yes, you do. you might try to cover up, you might try to excuse yourself, you might kind of come up with all other kinds of things, but at the end of the day, you know that you are a sinner. And not only that, when you recognize that you are a sinner and that the whole world, all the people around you too are sinners, it helps you to avoid a common error that people fall into. Because if you think about it, if you think, I'm basically good, and I'm basically trying to live a good life and I'm doing good things, then why do bad things happen? Well, it's gotta be because something or someone else is making this happen to me, right? There's gotta be some malevolent force out there doing this to us. Well, there's something true about that. We just have to recognize we're all implicated in it. Because when we think we're basically good, something else out there is doing this bad thing to me, I'm going to turn to some other group, some other person, some other institution, some government, some organization, something that's going to fix the problem of bad people doing bad things to me. What's the problem? Whoever you turn to is also implicated in the problem. They're sinners too. Sin has infected everything we do as human beings, from our governments, to our hospitals, to our schools, to everything we do. There is nowhere you can turn outside of us to get out of this problem. No one living is righteous before you. You see, when a soul comes to that point, you really realize I have to call upon the name of the Lord because there is no one else in this whole world that's gonna get me or the rest of the world out of this problem we're in. So while it sounds harsh to say you are a sinner, actually, no one is righteous before God. What it's actually doing is driving us to the true source of salvation. Where can we find hope? Who do we appeal to? Who actually is righteous? Well, we've already said it in verse one. In your faithfulness, answer me in your righteousness. You are the one, you are the only one who always does what is right. And I can actually go to that one, even though I am a sinner, I can go to that one and appeal to him to bring deliverance. So you need God's righteous work here because you are not righteous. We are not righteous. But there's another reason even, tied in with what we've already been talking about here, verses three and four. You need God's righteous work because there are real enemies of your soul. There are real enemies of your soul. The enemy has pursued my soul, it says in verse three. He has crushed my life to the ground. He has made me sit in darkness like those long dead. Therefore, my spirit faints upon me and my heart within me is appalled. The Psalm was expressing almost a state of shock. that he's entered into at how deep this problem is and how powerful his enemies are. So who are these enemies the Psalm is talking about? Sometimes, of course, if you've been around in church very long, you'll hear them summarized as things like The world, the flesh, and the devil. Now, who are the enemies of your soul? The world, the flesh, and the devil. And that's actually a good answer. That's a nice shorthand answer to help us kind of remember what is actually out there that's opposing, attacking my soul. Well, the world, the flesh, and the devil. But it's good for us sometimes to pause and to unpack that a little bit so that we really realize the full weight of the enemies in opposition to our soul. Think about what this means. The last one of those three that I just listed was the devil, Satan, the adversary, the accuser of our souls. The Bible describes him as a roaring lion walking about seeking whom he may devour. Is Satan real? Yes. Is he actively opposing God and all of his good work in people's lives? Yes. You know, one of the main ways he tries to do this, the Bible describes him as a liar. The Bible describes him as a deceiver. He's a liar and the father of lies. He opposes you. He opposes God and his work and therefore opposes your soul by his deceits. by his deceits. His deception is designed to take you away from God. We saw this from the very entrance of sin into this world in the Garden of Eden, didn't we? How did Satan approach Eve? Did God really say and began to twist, twist what God said, turn it into something else, deceive, deceive. And before long, All of mankind is turning away from God, trusting in themselves, determining life for themselves, falling into sin. That's what Satan does. We heard about this a little bit, actually, in the scripture reading this morning that we read in the Gospel of Luke, right? Jesus talking about casting out demons. When he came, the Son of God in the flesh, God coming to reveal himself to man in his righteousness, he said, if I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God is truly among you. This is God and his power to redeem, to establish his royal rule among men. And he is opposing the demons, those who carry out Satan's bidding. So this is a real enemy of your soul today. You are living in a world directed, influenced, guided by Satan and his minions. and he is working to deceive so that you do not come to the truth as it is in Jesus Christ. We talk about the world system under the leadership of Satan. When we talk about the world system, what we mean here, or sometimes we just say the world, we mean mankind organized apart from God. That is mankind living as if God was not God, but basically putting himself in that place, seeking his own kingdom instead of God's kingdom. This is what mankind has done ever since the fall, trying to ignore God, trying to dethrone God, trying to say, I don't need a savior, I'm good enough, I will be king. And when mankind operates that way, it doesn't just stay on an individual level. We talked about being sinners, right? Does sin just stay on an individual level? No, it actually works itself in all of our human institutions, our ways of operating together. so that we create entire systems, if you will, in opposition to God. We try to live life, achieve life without God. We don't need God. We can be king. That's the world system, right? Living for the here and now, living without God, living as if we can be God. And that comes out so many, well, in every aspect of life. But just to give you one illustration here, the book of Revelation, is a revelation of Jesus Christ and his purposes in God's kingdom, but it also, by that very means, is an unmasking of the true nature of this world system and what it's like. You might recall in Revelation 18, how the Bible describes the horror of Babylon. Babylon, of course, being the world system in opposition to God, but now described as a whore, a prostitute. That is, mankind prostituting himself with false gods, with idols, as opposed to the one true and living God. But you notice when this whore of Babylon is destroyed in Revelation 18, it says that the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her. The merchants of the earth. There's something about the whole economic system of the way the world works that is designed to take people into idolatry and away from God. It goes on, since no one buys their cargo anymore. Cargo of gold, silver, jewels, pearls, fine linen, purple cloth, silk, scarlet cloth, all kinds of scented wood, all kinds of articles of ivory, all kinds of articles of costly wood, bronze, iron and marble, cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle, sheep, horses, chariots. I mean, all of the wealth of this world, right? This is what the whore of Babylon was trading in. But again, it's true nature begins to come out. Even in the last article of that list that I haven't read yet, it says, and slaves, that is human souls. What Babylon as a world system is ultimately trafficking in is human souls. That's what she's after. She's devouring human souls. And folks, the world system hasn't changed to this day. It's still after human souls, right? The buyers, the sellers, apart from God, they're not doing what they do because they love you. And they really care about your eternal wellbeing in Jesus Christ. They're doing what they're doing so they can use you to get what they want. And we build entire systems of human organization on this. We build government structures on this very way of thinking. We build business structures on this very way of thinking. And we, in fact, even put in place laws to try to protect this way of thinking. I can live how I want. I can do what I want. I can use other people how I want in any kind of realm. Because after all, that's my rights, isn't it? Folks, are you aware of this kind of a thing? Are you aware that you need to be delivered from this, saved from this enemy of your soul? You see, if you simply fall in line with the economics of the world system, You know what it's doing? It's wooing your soul away from Christ. It's, hey, look at all of our trinkets. Look at all of our riches. We're gonna give you the good life. Desire this. Put your hope here. Put your faith here. Put your trust here. Give us your love. It's wooing your soul away from Christ. That's what it's trying to do. And you need to be delivered from that. It is trying to train you to think apart from God. It's going to entice your desires. away from seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And it's gonna do it all in the name of being very practical, right? This is just a common sense way to live because it makes more money and you have more goodies and you have a more comfortable life, right? Follow us. Folks, you have to be saved from that. Do you realize that? That is sucking away your life Now, just think about, I just used economics as one illustration of what this psalm is praying about. The enemy has pursued my soul. But when you begin to realize how all-encompassing this is, economics, law and politics, and government, entertainment, all kinds of things, when you begin to realize how all-encompassing this is, are you beginning to see how powerful, at least in human terms, the enemies of your soul are? In human terms, they control everything. They tell you how life is supposed to be lived. And you've got to try to somehow live in this world without getting devoured by that. How can you do that? How can you even know how you're supposed to live when the enemies of God seem to control everything and define reality for you? When you're in that position, you're realizing No one is righteous before you. The enemy has pursued my soul. He has crushed my life to the ground. My spirit faints. My heart within me is appalled. Now we're getting to the place where a soul is really crying out to God for salvation. And then to top it all off, I haven't even talked yet about the flesh. Talk about the world and the devil. Right? Your weak human nature, especially as it's dominated by sin. You see, the problem isn't just out there. There is a devil and he's real. There's a world system and it is working against your soul. And then you look at yourself and you find out you're very weak. And you yourself are dominated by sinful desires and you're easily led astray. Right? This becomes very personal. And so what we see here going on in this Psalm is it's teaching us to pray, teaching us what it means to call upon the name of the Lord for salvation. We are seeing that when God saves, when he delivers your soul from any enemy that would take you away from him, any enemy, he is saving you. He is being your refuge. The reason I point this out today is because many times, even in religious circles, even in church circles, we have so divorced salvation from all of our day-to-day experiences of life that we've really effectively secularized ourselves. You have to remember that your salvation is a living relationship of faith in a living God, and your salvation is not. Here's perhaps an error I think I, had when I was young, with all the blessings God gave me of being growing up in a Christian home with parents who taught me the way of the Lord from the time I was young, told me to put my faith in Jesus Christ, all these kinds of things, I still had to, if you will, grow out of a mindset that salvation was basically a kind of a one-time transaction with God, where you ask him to save you, and then he performs the transaction. You know, he puts this deposit in your bank account called salvation. Boom, okay, you've got that. It's in your bank account. It's in the vault. Don't worry about it anymore. And so that's done. Okay, now you've, you're saved. Now that's something different from the rest of life. The rest of life is, is other stuff you do having been, you know, you have the deposit, you're saved, but that's the rest of life is not being saved. That's something else. And I came to realize as I studied the scriptures more and more that that's not an accurate way of thinking about things. It's not that God doesn't act in time and history to save his people. That's certainly true. And it's not that he doesn't bring us to a point of conversion, which is certainly true, but folks, the life of faith in God is a life of seeing him save us. And that has to go on until he's brought us to his eternal kingdom. until he's brought this whole world, in fact, into right relationship with himself, until he has conquered all evil and made all things right with himself. That's salvation. That's what the Psalms are praying for. That's what this is teaching you to pray. Pardon me. So when the Psalms talk about crying out to God to be delivered, crying out to God to be saved, calling upon the name of the Lord, it's not like a one-time bank transaction. It's a lot more like, Being like a tree planted by rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season. Have you heard that in the Psalms anywhere? That's the relationship right there. That's how this works. Constantly drawing your life from the Lord, constantly seeing Him work to deliver you from enemies that are much more powerful than you are and that you will never overcome without Him. So you need God's righteous work as we've already seen from this Psalm. because you are not righteous, nor is the world around you. You need God's righteous work because there are real enemies of your soul. But verses five and six of this main first section of the Psalm here show us you need God's righteous work in the present, just as in the past. In the present, just as in the past. I remember the days of old. I meditate on all that you have done. I ponder the work of your hands. I stretch out my hands to you. My soul thirsts for you like a parched land. So we see here, we are learning to remember, to meditate, to ponder on what God has done. We look back and we see God has worked. God has worked to glorify his name by saving his people. And we think about that. We meditate on it. We ponder it. We come to understand what's going on here. And by the way, one of the reasons you read the scripture repeatedly, or that we talk repeatedly in church, is so that you remember the mighty works of the Lord. You need to rehearse them all the time, because when you are in the situation of crying out to God in need, What is gonna come back to your mind? What are you gonna bank on? And what's going to guide your whole thought of what you should call out to God for? It should be, God has worked. This is who our God is. He's revealed himself. He has done this great work of redemption. And so I can call upon him now too, right? Now too. I remember what he has done. So I stretch out my hands to you. My soul thirsts for you like a parched land. And so my urging to you today is to stretch out your hands to him. Reach out to God. You see how it says here, my soul thirsts for you? Again, a soul that is crying out to God, recognizing how much it needs him is recognizing there is nothing in this world that can ultimately satisfy my soul. There is nothing in this whole world that can deliver me. I need God. I need God to come to me. I need to be united with him. In fact, that's what salvation is. You remember that? Being united with God in Christ by the Spirit is the goal of your existence. This is what you were made for, to be united with God in Christ by the Spirit. So when you experience that union with God in Christ by the Spirit each day, day by day, in all the affairs of life, you are being saved. God is delivering you by giving himself to you, by working on your behalf to bring you to himself. When God communicates his life to you, to bring you to know him, he is saving you. He's doing that good work. So we see this psalm teaches us, my soul thirsts for you. It's the cry of a soul needing God's righteous work. But then it shifts gears a little bit here in the second part of the psalm in verses seven through 12. And I'll just call this, I am your servant. The righteous work of God is what, or the righteous work, let me say it this way, the righteous work of God that a fainting spirit needs is what we see in verses seven and 12. What is the righteous work of God that I need? Okay, I recognize my condition. I recognize without God, I have no salvation. I need him to be working in everything. What should that work look like? What will that salvation, if you will, consist of? What do we call upon God to do? Or what is the salvation that you cry out for? We see this in verses seven through 12, and I just want to, for our purposes here, walk through several of the requests this psalm teaches us to pray so that we see what our salvation consists of. It says in verse 7, answer me quickly, O Lord, hurry, answer me, picking up that whole theme from the first part of the psalm. My spirit fails, and then it begins to expound on what we need God to do. First of all, hide not your face from me. Hide not your face from me, lest I be like those who go down to the pit. To die without God is to have eternal death. There is no hope. when we die without God. So he says, lest I go down like those who go down to the pit. Don't hide your face from me. You cannot read those words without thinking of that quintessential Old Testament blessing, right? May the Lord make his face to shine upon you. And what does it mean for the Lord to make his face to shine upon you? I think just a moment's reflection will know. It means he is God's personal presence and favor. He is with you. and he approves, he gives you his favor. You might call it his grace. Pardon me. And folks, this is exactly what is accomplished by the sending of Jesus Christ when he became a man, lived in this world among us, took to himself a true human nature, died on the cross on our behalf, was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, ascended to heaven. He was showing us God in the flesh, God's favor, But even in His ascending to glory, what did He do? He sends the Spirit. You read about this, by the way, again, in our scripture reading this morning in Luke. How much more will God send His Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? Right? This is what this is talking about. I need you, God. For God to send His Spirit is God Himself, right? It's God coming to live with us, to be with us, to give us His own kind of life. That's His face shining upon you, with you through all the experiences of life, all the ups and downs, all the ins and outs, bringing you safely to His eternal kingdom. This is what is accomplished by Christ sending His Spirit. Pardon me. So we pray, make His face to shine upon you. We also, the salvation that we cry out for also means that we hear of his steadfast love in verse eight. Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love. Of course, the psalmist is speaking poetically when he says in the morning here. He's not talking about only in the morning, but it's the time of coming through the dark night and coming into the light And is there hope? Is there a future? Is there a reason to get up and go to work today? Is there life? And he says, let me hear in the morning what's going to tell me there really is a good thing ahead of me, life to be lived, something to live for, eternal life with God. What's gonna tell me that? Let me hear about your steadfast love. Let me hear of your character. You're the kind of a God who does not change, who makes promises to his people, who never goes back on them, who is always going to accomplish his salvation. Let me hear about you. Let me know about you. Because that's what gives me hope for this life. Folks, that's how God works to save you. Did you know that? How does he bring you safely through this evil world to his eternal kingdom? He gives you hope every day. And how does he give you hope that life is actually worth living? That the evil that I have to go through in this world isn't going to triumph in the end. He says, look at me. Here's the kind of God I am. Here's the kind of God I've revealed myself to be. Here's the kind of God I've proven myself to be. Time and time again throughout history, I'm a God of steadfast love. I keep my covenants. In fact, I have given you my own self in my son, Jesus Christ. How will I not also with him give you all things, right? He gives you hope. God saves you as you cry out to him, let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love. He gives you hope. What else does this Psalm say is the salvation that we cry out for? Also in verse eight, make me know the way I should go for to you I lift up my soul. We already spoke about the power, the overwhelming, all surrounding power of the enemies of your soul. this whole world system under the leadership of Satan, how in the world are you gonna know how to live so that you're on the path to the kingdom? Well, you cry out to God for that. Make me know the way I should go. This again, folks, is why we don't think of salvation as just the deposit in the bank that's done and then it has nothing to do with the rest of my life. No, God saving you means he's going to lead you the rest of your life. Make me know, teach me. Anybody who's truly seeking the Lord for salvation is going to be seeking to know the Lord's way. He's going to recognize how much he needs God's direction, God's teaching, God's training. He's going to be grateful for God's even, you might say, even disciplinary teaching in your life, right? When God has to spank you a little bit. I'm gonna ask to wake you up a little bit. You're gonna be thankful for that because you know, I need God to teach me. Keep me from going astray to the right hand or the left. I need him to direct me so that I'll live in the way that is on the path to his kingdom. Make me know the way I should go. I hope you come to church this morning with this very cry in your lips, by the way. God, I'm coming today to worship you, to trust you, because I need you to teach me the way I should go. This is the constant cry of God's children. That's what salvation, working out in your life, looks like. It also, in verse nine, looks like, delivering me from my enemies, O Lord, I have fled to you for refuge. It means constantly going back to the Lord as your true rock and your defender, your shield, your savior. Yes, I have powerful enemies, but I go back to the Lord. Yes, they're overwhelming to me, but I go back to the Lord. Don't look anywhere else. for salvation. That's a characteristic of true salvation when you're not looking to man to be your refuge in any situation. Folks, don't look to doctors, medical doctors, to be your salvation. It's not that medical doctors don't have their place, do they? They very much do. We're very grateful for all the common grace, the revelation of God that people have studied to understand how our bodies work and things of that nature so that we can try to help them work the way they should work. We're grateful for all of that. But folks, when you recognize the depth of the effects of sin, you'll again recognize medical doctors can never overcome that, can they? They just won't be able to. You need God. Not a disparagement of medical doctors in any way. I'm just, again, just like we talked about economics earlier, I'm talking about medical medicine now or whatever system and situation you wanna pick. God has to be your refuge. Deliver me from my enemies. This is what salvation looks like through the situations of life. Next one, verse 10. Teach me to do your will. Very similar to what we saw earlier in verse eight. Teach me to do your will for you are my God. I submit myself to your will. And I look for your training in life so that I do what you want. The next aspect of this salvation we look for is let your good spirit lead me on level ground. Let your good spirit lead me. Take me the way I need to go, not in a way that's too hard for me, but in a way that I need to go to experience the fullness of life in Jesus Christ. Let your spirit do that. I need you to be present. You might be familiar with Romans chapter eight, where the Bible talks about the spirit, all who are sons of God are led by the spirit of God. It's talking about the exact same thing the psalmist is talking about. If you are one of God's children, you are led by his spirit. Let me just clear up a little bit of confusion there that sometimes creeps into Christian circles. Sometimes people think that being led by the spirit is some extraordinary thing that only certain Christians have. The reality is anyone who truly trusts the Lord has the leading of the spirit. That's how you make it to glory. If you don't have the leading of the spirit, you won't make it. You can't overcome, but the leading of the spirit is what takes you by the hand. God very graciously being present in his own person to give you strength, to teach you, to train you, to bear you up and to bring you ultimately to himself. And so it says in verse 11, another aspect of this prayer for salvation, for your name's sake, oh Lord, preserve my life, revive me. God works that out day in day as he gives you life and brings you to eternal life. In your righteousness, bring my soul out of trouble. I'm in danger, I'm in distress. I need you again in your righteousness to bring my soul out of trouble. And the last request then in verse 12, and in your steadfast love, cut off my enemies. This is what my confidence is in you to do. Cut off my enemies, destroy all the adversaries of my soul. Why? For I am your servant. That's the true posture of a soul that is crying out to the Lord for salvation. Folks, you don't come to God on your own terms. Right? You don't truly ask him for salvation. If you think you've basically got this in control, if you think you're the master, why would you ask him for salvation? Unless it's, you know, I need a little help now and then, you know, calling the man upstairs. Life's been a little bit more than I can handle lately. Maybe he'll help me out. You hear that kind of a sentiment sometimes. That's not what we're talking about here. This is taking the position of a servant. A loyal, dedicated servant. I submit myself entirely to God because He alone is the one who is worthy, He's God, and He alone is the one who's righteous and can save. Folks, if you make the Psalms your songbook on your pilgrimage to the New Jerusalem, then you are going to be praying over and over and over again for God's deliverance. You realize that roughly maybe a third of the Psalms are Psalms of lament, as they're often called. You might just call them cries for salvation, right? A sinner's prayer, a need for God to deliver. And you're gonna be praying this if the Psalms are the songbook for your soul like God means them to be. You're gonna be praying for God's rescue, God's salvation. In every situation of life, and I mean every situation of life, as you recognize your own inability, you're gonna turn to Him as your deliverer, and you're gonna call upon His name. You see, folks, this is what living faith looks like. It looks like Psalm 143. This is what living hope in God looks like. It looks like Psalm 143. There's no self-sufficiency here at all. There's no, I've got this. I'm pretty smart, I'm pretty strong, I'm pretty strategic, I've got this, that's all out. It's I need God. This is complete confidence in God's righteousness, not mine. It's God's righteousness that has been made known in Jesus Christ. I trust you all know that here together today. Folks, I'm preaching this today, this last Psalm of Lament for your salvation. to use the language Paul told Timothy, to devote himself to these things, to save yourself and your hearers. Why does God want you to hear this message today? For your salvation, so that you will stop trusting yourself or anything else, anyone else in this world, and you will turn to Him in complete dependence, total surrender, submission to Him, You see, folks, God's righteousness has been made known in Jesus. He truly is just and the justifier of those who believe in Jesus. He is perfectly right to exercise his power on behalf of all who put their trust in him. Do you believe that today? If so, call upon the name of the Lord for full salvation. And so if you believe that, would you confess your faith together? We do this together as a congregation for those who believe. If you need the words, they are in the bulletin, a confession of faith taken from the scripture about Jesus Christ and God's revelation of righteousness in him. So if this is your prayer today, Psalm 143, appealing to the Lord for righteousness, Would you confess it together as a congregation out loud? He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. Jesus is Lord. Amen.